My phone rings and the voice on the other end asks what my plans are next week. No plans. “Good,” says the editor of Soup. “Put your leathers in your suitcase. I want you to fly out to Dunlop’s proving grounds in Huntsville, Alabama and try out their new Q3 Sportmax tires. A travel agent will be calling you.”
Soon enough I am trying to check my helmet, boots and leathers at the airport and then I am on a plane.
Your first question must be this: who the hell is this guy and why should I care that he’s trying to check an gi-normous bag through to Alabama?
Allow me to introduce myself; I’m Willy Ivins. I’ve been riding motorcycles—legally, at least—since I was 15, which was some time ago. Does that time pre-date disco? When the cassette tape was the medium of choice for my pirated music collection? Maybe. Since then I’ve always had at least one streetbike and try to ride daily. My current “main” set of wheels is a 2008 CBR1000RR—it has 51,000 miles on it and I’ve lost count how many sets of tires I have spooned in it over the years—probably more than ten. It wore Dunlop Q2s most recently. I use it as my main two-wheeled transportation—I’ve ridden it for days at a time traveling in every cardinal direction of the compass (except West—I live in California), I run around in the canyons on it on weekends and I know the volume of groceries—down to the last bag of pistachios—I can buy without toppling its tank bag.
I began roadracing in 1986 on a RZ350 at Willow Springs and am still racing today. I’ve raced again a variety of bikes over the years—and at tracks all over the US—Daytona, Grattan, Roebling Road and the rest. Primarily I’ve raced small two strokes—much of it with the AFM, USGPRU (formerly the GPRA), CCS, the now defunct WSMC, and currently the MWGP. My current steed of sanctioned high velocity is a 1996 Honda RS125R (affectionately referred to as ‘The Angry Leaf Blower’) that I started racing on the east coast in '99, but I’ve raced a variety of bikes over the years and am up for just about any kind of two wheeled adventure, be it supermoto, off-road or just scooters on the beach in Daytona.
In short, I am probably a lot like you. I enjoy motorcycles, riding them as much as I can. I like to ride at a good pace on the street and regularly hone my ‘red mist’ skills with race days and track days at various closed circuit venues in SoCal. Additionally, I’m sort of a tire nerd when it comes to my bikes—I have my own tire mounting machine, and probably own as many tire spoons as I have silverware spoons in my bachelor kitchen. Really.
Enough about me.
Some Dunlop backstory: Dunlop brought their revolutionary Sportmax Q2 tires to the sportbike market back in 2009. Since then, the Q2 has been the tire of choice for legions of high-performance motorcycle riders who frequent their favorite roads, track day venues, and even commuter routes. I think the Q2 was largely considered the best street tire for most applications, and the fact that you see them on race bikes, race school bikes and a multitude of bikes on the street speaks more for the Q2 tire than what I could say. Nearly four years after its introduction, the Q2 continues to come out on top in most sportbike tire comparisons, and in that light, honestly, it would have been well understood if Dunlop let the Q2 run another year or more in the marketplace. Dunlop, however, is aware of the perils of resting on its laurels, and they set about producing a suitable successor to the Q2. It’s good to be king, but it’s also a precarious position to be in, with that bullseye placed squarely on your back, courtesy of all sportbike tire shootouts Dunlop have won. As a guy who has paid for a bunch of Q2s with my own hard earned cash, my question was in light of the successes of the Q2, what could Dunlop possibly do to make the best even better?
Dunlop went to work on the Q3 knowing that, while today’s riders still hold absolute performance as priority number one, current economic conditions mean that the bang-for-the-buck factor is now nearly equal, unlike before, when price was a little bit less of a concern. So they had to make a better tire that would sell for generally the same price. Good luck with that.
With the successful Q2 as the foundation for the Q3, many of its features were carried over, so carcass layout and materials are familiar, as is the rear tire’s multi-tread and jointless belt technology. Dunlop’s latest experience in the road racing environment means that the rubber compounds have received tweaks. The rear tire’s center width is a longer-wearing, cooler-running compound, while the side sections feature a compound from the GP-A DOT racing tire.
For the Q3, however, a new material—carbon fiber—has been added to stiffen the sidewalls. Yes, carbon fiber tires—isn’t it great to be alive today? Carbon’s use in tires is new to the motorcycle world, but it is fairly common in the car world. For example, Dunlop’s parent company, Goodyear, uses carbon fiber in its Eagle F1 performance car tires.
Carbon fiber’s properties of stiffness, light weight, resistance to chemicals, and thermal stability make it an ideal material to add stiffness to a motorcycle’s sidewall. This is an area of the tire that bears huge loads in braking and cornering, and it has a direct influence on stability and steering precision. The lightweight aspect also helps make the added material’s impact on unsprung mass almost immeasurable. However, the carbon fiber is not in the form of a woven cloth, as I had imagined. It is, instead, carbon atoms bonded together into crystals, and laid out in a semi-aligned manner along the circumference just above the bead.
The Q2’s intuitive response profile, which provides a taller profile with an aggressive taper leading to the sidewall, is also utilized in the Q3. On the newest Sportmax, it has been refined to be even more aggressively tapered to the sidewall, which provides a larger contact patch at full lean.
Keen observers will notice changes to the tread pattern. Dunlop’s cosecant groove design is used, albeit with adjustments to placement and a longer length. Appearance-wise, the tire bears closer similarity to the D211 GP-A than to the Q2. Dunlop’s Huntsville crew experimented exhaustively with hand-grooved tires to find an optimum tread design for wet-weather performance, and they say that success has been achieved.
I was summoned to verify the veracity of their claim where the tire was developed, the Dunlop Proving Grounds in Huntsville, Alabama. This is where, er, the rubber meets the road. It’s a motorcycle-only, dry-and wet-testing facility—the only one of its kind in the U.S. The wet-testing feature is used by many AMA Pro Road Racing teams to test and refine their wet-weather setups. The course layout has 4 total miles of pavement: the short, handling, and wet course is a half-mile long, while the long course is 1.3 miles. Despite the long course’s relatively short overall distance, the straightaway is sufficiently long enough to see just over an indicated 150 mph before slowing for the second-gear left/right chicane.
Q3s mounted, tech briefing over, my first laps were taken aboard a Kawasaki ZX-6R, with Dunlop’s test rider, ex- AMA Pro racer Rich Conicelli, leading for a couple of laps to familiarize me with the layout. After learning the course, I was able to turn up the wick to find out what the Q3 is all about. After a 15-minute session, I came in drenched in sweat despite the mild 80 degrees showing on the thermometer. In California, 80 degrees is darn near long sleeve weather, due to the almost complete lack of any moisture in the air. In Huntsville, the relative humidity numbers don’t stray too far from the air temp numbers. So, while rehydrating with some much-needed water, I wrote in my notebook “no drama”. The tires were amazingly capable and I simply rode as fast as I dared to and found basically no weak points in that environment.
As I waited for my next session—the track layout overlaps, so only one rider at a time can be on course—I contemplated my lack of data collection. My second session was on a Suzuki GSX-R600 and, while I was more comfortable and fluid on course. The one thing that I struggled with a bit with the idea that the Q3 has a stiffer sidewall than my old familiar Q2s, as I felt no bumps of any significance in either session. I asked if the track is actually that smooth, and the reply was simply a wry grin, and a “Hold that thought” comment from Dunlop’s Rich Conicelli.
This must have been anticipated because, next, the bikes were fitted with the older version Q2 tires. I went out on the ZX-6R again, and I was mentally scratching my helmet from the first corner on, wondering what in the word had just transpired. With the older Q2s mounted there was a lot of nervousness on the brakes and a harshness in the ride quality that I didn’t experience in the first two sessions. Was that bump there before? Am I crossing that transition in a different spot? What the hell is going on here? Finding the apex and maintaining a line required much more mental focus than earlier sessions. Initial traction levels seemed the same, though, and warmup on sticker tires wasn’t a concern, but I was almost worn out trying to lap fast on a tire that I’d recommended to numerous friends when they wondered which tire to put on their bike. What just happened?
Perspective is an important thing. After all the journalists got their sessions on the Q2, the bikes were re-fitted with Q3s again. After I completed the first lap on the Q3-mounted GSX-R600, the light bulb came on…like a torch. The Q2 is a brilliant tire, with lofty capabilities, but the Q3 completely trumps it in every measure of performance I can think of. The bumps again disappeared. The set & forget behavior for following my line through a corner returned, and, despite occasionally lifting the rear wheel when braking, both middleweights tracked true and without drama. I trail brake, heavily at times, and ride the front end quite hard. The Q3s ate it up, not once wavering from my intended line. Hard acceleration gave the same advantage of increased stability and precise behavior over the Q2. My comparison between the tires has centered on what I’ve felt from the bikes, but the difference between the Q3 and Q2 is, in my opinion, undeniably measurable. In fact, Dunlop did measure and quantify the superiority of the Q3 over the Q2, beyond what I was reporting. I was shown lap traces from their data collection bike that recorded lap times a half-second quicker during the 1.3-mile dry lap, and a 1.4-second quicker lap on the half-mile wet course. That theoretically would equate to a full second quicker lap in the dry, and a massive 6 seconds quicker in wet conditions at Barber Motorsports Park. The Q3 does more of what the rider asks of it, all with reduced effort from the rider. Reduced effort used correcting and shepherding the bike’s line can now be directed towards the mental aspect of finding a way to go faster, at the same level of effort. All through the Q3 sessions, I would note the tire wear as other riders came in. Even after two sessions each for the four riders, all without a shred of mechanical sympathy, the Q3s showed almost no wear, they hadn’t even broken a sweat.
Someone mention wet conditions? Then it was time to turn on the sprinklers, and I don’t mean for the purpose of watering the grass. These east coast types are serious about irrigation, even the asphalt gets watered out here. As the track neared its proper, standing-water condition, Rich came into the garage where we were enjoying the air conditioning, and he asked, “Who wants to go first?” All my years in the Marines did not save me from that impulse to be the first volunteer. “I’ll go!” I blurted out. Why? I’d had a certain wide-eyed curiosity—even excitement—about the tread design to see if it was indeed as good as Dunlop said it was. Dunlop had some riding celebs on hand for the press intro and 1993 500cc world champion Kevin Schwantz must have seen it in my face. As I strapped on my helmet, Kevin came over to me and locked eyes with me while he said, “Stay off the paint!” When a World Champion gives you simple instructions like that, your only response is “Roger that.”
The wet course makes use of large, constant-radius corners, so you can easily settle into a line and experiment with the throttle or brakes. Again, Rich led me out for a couple of exploratory laps. As I navigated—an appropriate nautical term given the amount of water on the track—I noticed that the standing water was deep enough to create perfect, mirror-like reflections of the surroundings. Rich picked up speed, and I really wanted to keep pace, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it, at least not initially.
Again I am now a California rider. Riding in water that, to me, seemed deep enough to support aquatic life was difficult to process in just a few laps. I felt movement from both ends, but it was unlike anything I’d felt before, and I was unsure if the tires were warning me that I was about to be “that guy.” He slowed down and looked back, waiting for a thumbs-up, which I returned, and he pulled off. Plowing through the standing water, I continued to feel a short, sharp, slip/grip cycle from both ends, like a ratcheting movement. It didn’t upset the bike, there was no extra movement from the handlebars, and no “Oh, sh*t!” moments. The far-end turn was wet, but lacked the standing water of the other turn, so the tire behaved as if the surface was dry. I did get my knee down in this turn and was able to brake and feed in throttle (in moderation) without any hysterics from the bike…or from me.
I needed to mull this situation over before venturing back out in the wet. I live in California and I’d be the first to tell you it never rains there, so this was a new experience for me. I hadn’t really ridden in deep standing water since I moved out of Florida several decades ago, and from Virginia a solid decade back. Rain riding is a perishable skill.
Also, being the first rider out, I didn’t want to push things and ruin the other testers opportunity to sample these conditions, so I pulled in, with a mind to ride another session. I told Rich the feedback I was getting, and he confirmed, “Yeah, that’s what they do. Just stay relaxed on the bike, and trust the tires.” Hmm, I figured he’d say something like that. Okay.
My second session was granted, and again the sprinklers dispensed their ‘acid test’. While the other riders and the Dunlop crew packed up, I cut more laps. Rich’s words “Trust the tires” ran through my mind in the voice of Obi-Wan, and my pace increased significantly. The tires continued to relate their ratcheting feedback, and while I was certainly off Conicelli’s pace, I was satisfied that I’d adequately sampled the Q3’s wet-weather capabilities. My confidence in both ends increased considerably, and with time I’m sure I could have become as smooth and confident as Rich in those conditions-well, close anyway. With Rich on the Suzuki GSX-R1000 data bike, he got his knee down in the wet but I was probably at least one more session - okay, two - away from being that confident in myself to use the full strength of the Q3 in the wet. I could rest easy tonight, after my self redemption.
The latest evolution of Dunlop’s cosecant curve tread design is the sole reason for the Q3’s water borne heroics. During the morning tech briefing, I’d asked about the presence of silica in the rubber compound, since it hadn’t been mentioned and seemed widely used in other tires to improve wet weather performance. The engineers told us that silica, while being beneficial to wet performance for some tires, was determined to be unnecessary for this application because of the tread design’s ability to quickly channel water away from the contact patch. In this instance, silica would only add cost, but no benefit. I heard one of the Dunlop engineers say that the Q3 is so good that it could conceivably be used as an intermediate wet tire during an AMA Pro Road Racing event. That would not surprise me at all.
The Q3 is manufactured at the Buffalo, NY, plant, avoiding expensive transportation costs of bringing in tires manufactured in England or Japan (the sidewall even sports a very cool molded-in, made-in-the-USA label), using the same new machines that produce Dunlop’s AMA Pro Road Racing tires. This ensures a cutting-edge product, and the dual tasking of the equipment also cuts down on production costs. Seems to me that Dunlop has managed to reduce material costs, and the Q3 has inherited the Q2’s pricing structure. Applause from guys like me that buy at least three sets of tires a year.
The new Sportmax Q3 is a clear improvement over the previous Sportmax Q2 in every way. I requested a set to take home and mount on my streetbike to see what they are like in street conditions (I sense they will be great and will report back after I put on some miles). I’d like to chronicle durability and profile degradation in my street riding. But, even if tire life on the street for the Q3 is the same Q2, the purchaser of these tires is getting a significant boost in their bang for the buck. In talking with the various Dunlop staff at the launch, I can assure you, the reader, that what they accomplished was anything but easy. Pushing a successful product like the Q2 to the next level, bringing new technology, delivering higher performance at effectively lower cost is a manufacturing coup de gras. The tire is better in every way that is important to people like us—people who like to go ride motorcycles quickly.
With the exception of the discontinued 170/60-17, the Q3s are available now in the usual sizes.
ENDS
